Australian Studies: Guided Issues Study - Indigenous people in the media

"Aboriginal people are not able to counter mass media stereotyping". Discuss

One of the biggest problems with Aboriginal people gaining widespread acceptance in the Australian community is the negative stereotyping created by the mass media. The average media stereotype of an Aboriginal person is uncivilized, ill tempered, unemployed, violent, and often inebriated. While not all media portray this, the few that do not only have a relatively insignificant influence as their readers and viewers only form a minor percentage of the population.

The items the media publish featuring Aboriginal people tend to generate and reinforce these cultural stereotypes by, practically, exclusively featuring articles that draw attention to Aboriginal people in a negative way, and isolating the Aboriginal community's worst members. This causes the Australian community to generalise all Aboriginal people as subsisting similar to this. In addition, they rarely focus on the positive members of the Aboriginal community and show Aboriginal people in a positive manner.

Aboriginal flag

Playing the traditional aboriginal musical instrum...

Noel Pearson

In addition, they rarely illustrate the benefits Aboriginal citizens provide for society.

Articles in popular newspapers featuring Aboriginal people also tend to be prejudiced, biased and misrepresentative. Furthermore, the few that do show the other side of the argument often only mention it at the end of the article, where less than 20% of readers reach. The result is that most people are left with a narrow view of Aboriginal people, as the article does not show the cause of the problem, nor does not show the Aboriginal person's side.

One typical example of an article that is imbalanced is "Children of the shadows", published on page 10 of the Monday May the 12th 2003 Australian. The article highlights one Aboriginal person and this gives the impression that all the "street kids"...

Reviews of: "Indigenous people in the media.":

However, I will advise you on the dangers of a 'too liberal bias'. While being left is gaining popularity these days it also shows prejudice. You should be able to report the facts objectively, and this is so very important. The article you have use for you argument was great, I haven't read it but I assume that you have retold the facts from it adequately.

But your argument fails to address the 'fallacies' of other media portrayal. There is strong evidence that in the Aboriginal community there is a negative side, these stereotypes came about for a reason you only have to go into one of the east coast cities at night to see this. My own views of people have developed from experience, go into the Brisbane Valley after dusk or go into Aboriginal communities to work as volunteer aid and report what you see, would you still have the same view.

You also fail to address truths that would have helped your argument and shown examples of the kind of stereotype you would want to replace the negative one that is prevalent today. Something that comes to mind is aboriginal artists.

More The Media essays:

... indigenous Australians were mainly of English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh descent, Australia has long been a truly multicultural community. Such messages were clearly represented by the media internationally and nationally, and the image of Australia became not only that of white people ...

... people, we witness a culture of voyeurism. Ours is a society in transition and thus a conflict between liberal and orthodox sentiments is evident. Globalisation favours modernisation. Regressive forces in the name of preserving indigenous ... stereotypes ...

5 pages17Jul/20070.0

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